Elkhorn Hot Springs
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Elkhorn Hot Springs is a hot spring high in the Beaverhead National Forest, Beaverhead County, Montana, 28 miles from Dillon. Open access on Forest Service land. The source runs hot, above comfortable soaking. The water is strongly alkaline, with some iron. At over seven thousand feet, this is cold country; the yearly average temperature is in the mid thirties.
Old Polaris Road runs past a little over a hundred feet away. Nearly nine feet of snow falls in an average winter, and snow on that road will decide when you can get in. Lupine Shelter is about three miles away for camping. The forest here is Beaverhead, and the designation is plain national forest, so this is public ground.
December to February is the listed window. Confirm Old Polaris Road is passable. The source temperature is above what most people will sit in, so whatever pool exists, if one does, needs to cool the water; nothing on file describes a pool. No fee recorded. The chemistry is from 1978.
Aircraft with laser scanners measured this ground to within inches. The scan strips out trees and buildings, leaving the bare shape of the land around Elkhorn Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the northwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 302 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northwest
A slice through the ground from west to east, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's about 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 50% of the springs on this site.
Heat flow measures the warmth working its way up through the ground from deep inside the earth. Where it runs high, rain and snowmelt that seep down through cracks in the rock come back up hot.
See every spring on the geothermal heat map →
Heat flow estimate: Stanford Thermal Earth Model (Aljubran & Horne, 2024), CC BY 4.0.
The water at Elkhorn Hot Springs is alkaline (pH 9.2).
Overview Lupine Shelter is a picnicking facility open year-round, however it is most heavily visited during the winter, when it is used by snowmobilers as a warming hut. It is an excellent location to have a picnic or a family gathering any time of year.Recreation In winter, snowmobiling, cross country skiing and snowshoeing are popular activities in the snow-covered meadow surrounding the shelter. During the spring, summer and fall, a variety of hiking and mountain biking trails can be foun...
Elkhorn Hot Springs sits at 7,203 feet above sea level, way above the mile-high mark. You may not feel the altitude strongly, but hot water still dehydrates you faster at elevation. UV is about 29% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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